“No.” Cramer glared. “My God, you can be honorable when you want to be! Will you answer a plain question? Do you think she was murdered?”

“No.”

“Then you think it was purely accidental?”

“No.”

“What the hell do you think?”

“Nothing at all. About that. I know nothing about it. I have no interest in it. The woman died, as all women do, may she rest in peace, and I lost a fee. Why don’t you ask me this: if you knew what I know, if I told you all about the job she hired me for, would you feel that her death required further investigation?”

“Okay. I ask it.”

“The answer is no. Since you have discovered no single suspicious circumstance. Will you have some beer?”

“Yes, I will,” Cramer growled.

He consumed a bottle, got no further concessions either in information or in hypothetical questions, and departed.